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The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power

Caro, Robert A.

Knopf, 2012

p. 186

In the years that Lyndon Johnson was Vice-President of the U.S., he suffered various humiliations, almost certainly at the behest of a man who hated him, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, brother of the President, John F. Kennedy. For instance, when Johnson was to travel somewhere, he would put in a request for an air force plane, but would often not be given one of the Boeing 707s (the same model as that used by the President) that the Air Force had set aside for high level government officials. Instead Johnson would be assigned a Lockheed JetStar, “a ten-passenger plane originally designed as an executive jet.” Moreover, the plane didn’t have on its fuselage “United States of America,” but “United States Air Force,” and “two prominent insignias on each side of the plane identified it as part of the Air Force’s Military Air Transport Service. Descending from so small a plane before a welcoming delegation of local dignitaries Johnson considered an embarrassment.”